“You don’t know who they are. They don’t identify themselves. There’s no due process,\u201d she told CBC News.<\/p>\n
The incident occurred as Trebach and other members of a Los Angeles activist group called Harbor Area Peace Patrols had been circulating images of licence plates on nondescript vehicles to alert migrant communities to their presence.<\/p>\n
On Aug. 8, volunteers were photographing ICE agents leaving a staging site for raids on Terminal Island, whose Japanese residents were the first in America to be displaced and forcibly detained<\/a> in internment camps during the Second World War<\/a>.<\/p>\n WATCH | ‘They\u2019re scared to go out and get groceries,’ activist says of migrants: Migrant patients in Los Angeles are scared to seek medical care, says nurse<\/p>\n Amanda Trebach, an ICU nurse and activist with Harbor Area Peace Patrols, says migrants from local communities are avoiding hospitals because masked agents have been known to patrol around them and other public institutions, looking for people to arrest, detain and deport.<\/p>\n Shortly after, the officers stopped their vehicle and jumped out; Trebach says they knelt on her head, handcuffed her and threw her into the back of a black van.<\/p>\n She says ICE \u201ckidnapped\u201d her and told her to stop taking photos.<\/p>\n \u201cI just said, \u2018Let me go. We’re here. It’s our right to monitor you,\u2019\u201d said Trebach. \u201cI’m a citizen.\u201d<\/p>\n Trebach was released without charge hours later.<\/p>\n \u201cAs is her constitutional right, Amanda was documenting the movements of the masked kidnappers,\u201d Harbor Area Peace Patrols\u2019 parent organization, Union del Barrio, wrote in a social media post<\/a> detailing Trebach\u2019s detainment.<\/p>\n ICE officers themselves have leaned into characterizations of their arrests as abductions. In an incident two weeks later, agents were videotaped taunting Peace Patrol activists<\/a> from their van saying, \u201cGood morning ladies! A-kidnapping we will go.\u201d<\/p>\n Trebach is hardly the only U.S. citizen arrested and detained without charge. In a recent investigation, ProPublica found that more than 170 U.S. citizens have been detained<\/a> by immigration enforcement as of Oct. 5.<\/p>\n University of California in Los Angeles law professor Jonathan Zasloff says ICE has effectively been operating with \u201cimpunity\u201d despite the growing cases of U.S. citizens and legal immigrants getting caught up in their raids.<\/p>\n \u201cThey could break all these constitutional rights and nothing could happen to them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n WATCH | ICE now largest U.S. police force:<\/p>\n ‘The constitution is right there’<\/p>\n Even citizens not actively involved in advocacy have been swept up in violent immigration raids.<\/p>\n George Retes, a U.S. army veteran, was on his way to work as a security guard at a legal marijuana grow operation called Glass House Farms in Ventura County, Calif., when he got caught between an active ICE raid and an organized protest.<\/p>\n In a FOX 11 Los Angeles livestream<\/a>, Retes is seen driving up to a wall of federal officers in military gear. Within two minutes, dozens of agents advance across the road, unleashing tear gas on the crowd of demonstrators.<\/p>\n After smoke from the tear gas can be seen engulfing his car, Retes, in an account of his arrest<\/a>, writes that despite having identified himself as a citizen, ICE agents “smashed my driver-side window, and pepper-sprayed my face” as “others stood by and watched.”<\/p>\n \u201cEven though I\u2019m just complying, an agent puts his knee on my back and another agent puts his knee on my neck. And as they\u2019re doing that I\u2019m just telling them I can\u2019t breathe,\u201d Retes, 25, told CBC News.<\/p>\n WATCH | George Retes says he was choked, arrested by ICE:<\/p>\n Retes said this kind of behaviour seems to contravene U.S. laws.<\/p>\n \u201cThe constitution is right there,” he said. “I mean, that\u2019s everything we stand for.\u201d<\/p>\n In a statement, ICE claimed<\/a> Retes was \u201cviolent and refused to comply with law enforcement,\u201d and blocked agents by \u201crefusing to move his vehicle out of the road.\u201d But ICE did not address why agents escalated the matter so quickly.<\/p>\n WATCH | ‘I can’t breathe’: U.S. army veteran recalls his arrest by ICE:<\/p>\n During the marijuana farm raids, federal authorities arrested more than 360 people \u2014 one of the largest ICE operations since Donald Trump became U.S. president for a second time in January. Among those arrested were four U.S. citizens<\/a>, charged with assaulting or resisting officers.<\/p>\n Retes was held for three days before being released. He was in such a state of distress over what happened that the detention facility put him on suicide watch, he told The Associated Press<\/a>.<\/p>\n Retes missed his daughter\u2019s third birthday while locked up, he said, and is now suing the federal government for unconstitutional detention<\/a>. He has not been charged.<\/p>\n \u201cIt’s just crazy that all this can happen,” he said. “But it doesn’t change what the flag stands for or what it means to be an American.\u201d<\/p>\n Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), said<\/a> ramped-up immigration enforcement is removing the worst kind of \u201ccriminal illegal aliens\u201d off U.S. streets and sending a message: \u201cSelf-deport or we will arrest and deport you.\u201d<\/p>\n Survey data from February 2024 to March 2025<\/a> shows about one-third of Americans agree that immigrants in the country illegally should be deported \u2014 though most believe arrests should not happen in places like schools and hospitals.<\/p>\n Masked immigration enforcement agents have arrested people in and outside of public institutions \u2014 including hospitals<\/a>, schools<\/a> and courthouses<\/a> \u2014 on multiple occasions. This has caused some migrants to avoid medical care out of fears they\u2019ll be detained, including at the hospital in South Los Angeles where Trebach works.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat Trump is doing is placing fear in the communities,\u201d Trebach said. \u201cThey’re trying to make us fearful so they can take over more power.\u201d<\/p>\n There is also an explicit mandate for ICE officers to arrest as many people as possible to meet Trump\u2019s mass deportation quota<\/a> of 3,000 people a day<\/a>, or over a million a year.<\/p>\n In June, California Gov. Gavin Newsom decried<\/a> the \u201cchaotic federal sweeps\u201d across his state to meet an \u201carbitrary arrest quota\u201d that is \u201creckless\u201d and \u201ccruel.\u201d<\/p>\n Based on government figures from last year<\/a> showing the number of immigrants with criminal convictions and pending charges being tracked by ICE, the administration is about 350,000 \u201cillegal aliens\u201d short of its target.<\/p>\n Social media accounts, websites<\/a> and even dedicated apps have documented sightings of immigration agents across the country, including a widely used phone app called ICEBlock.<\/p>\n Under pressure from the administration, Apple and Google removed ICEBlock from the app store earlier this month. Apple told the app\u2019s creator<\/a> it had violated the company\u2019s policies because \u201cits purpose is to provide location information about law enforcement officers that can be used to harm such officers individually or as a group.\u201d<\/p>\n In September, the U.S. Supreme Court paused an injunction by a California district court<\/a> to block \u201croving\u201d immigration patrols on the basis that ICE was stopping people based on their race, language, employment or location.<\/p>\n In her dissenting opinion, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that the Fourth Amendment \u201cprohibits exactly what the government is attempting to do here: seize individuals based solely on a set of facts that \u2018describe[s] a very large category of presumably innocent people.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n WATCH | California Latino caucus condemns U.S. Supreme Court decision on ICE raids:<\/p>\n The American Civil Liberties Union called<\/a> the Supreme Court ruling \u201coutrageous,\u201d saying it normalizes a culture of fear for anyone perceived as Latino who are subjected to increased racial profiling, arbitrary inspections and detentions.<\/p>\n Zasloff, the UCLA law professor, told CBC News this is an effort to return America from \u201ca modern, more diverse\u201d country to \u201cwhat it might have been in the 1830s.\u201d<\/p>\n Al Muratsuchi, a California state assemblymember who represents the South Bay region of Los Angeles, says his constituents, many of whom are working-class immigrants in industries like landscaping and construction, are being systematically victimized.<\/p>\n \u201cWe’re seeing similar themes of immigrants being a threat and being targeted based on their race,\u201d Muratsuchi, who is a son of Japanese American immigrants, told CBC News.<\/p>\n WATCH | California lawmaker describes U.S. deportation tactics as ‘viral campaign of weaponizing fear’: Trump also attacking American political leaders, universities, media, says California state lawmaker<\/p>\n Al Muratsuchi, a Japanese American assemblymember for California, says the goal of Donald Trump\u2019s immigration crackdown goes beyond deportation to create \u2018an overall atmosphere of fear,\u2019 especially after incidents like U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla being tackled and the National Guard being sent into Democratic cities.U.S. not a police state ‘yet’<\/p>\n ICE routinely promotes its activities on social media, including its use of force against migrants whom Trump has repeatedly described as \u201cvermin.\u201d<\/a> One shows ICE agents dragging away a Portland protester on a cart<\/a>. Officers tackle a man in another action-packed arrest compilation<\/a>.<\/p>\n Rock video-style clips posted by Greg Bovino, commander and nearly 30-year veteran of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), depict everything from clashes with protesters<\/a> to an alternative take on Star Wars that likens his agency to Darth Vader<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n CBC News made detailed requests for an interview with Bovino through CBP. Three weeks later, the agency has still not responded.<\/p>\n Despite the risks, a growing number of Americans like Trebach \u2014 millions in recent weeks<\/a> \u2014 are fighting for what they believe the nation represents.<\/p>\n In Illinois, the latest epicentre of Trump\u2019s crackdown on immigration and \u201cdomestic terrorism<\/a>,\u201d demonstrators sued law enforcement<\/a>, accusing them of violating their constitutional rights through excessive crowd control tactics like tear gas<\/a>.<\/p>\n LISTEN | Never expected to be ‘deployed against my neighbours’:<\/p>\n As It Happens6:02Why U.S. National Guard captain says he’ll defy Trump’s order to deploy in Chicago<\/p>\n Illinois National Guard Capt. Dylan Blaha\u00a0, who is also a Democratic candidate for Congress, spoke to As It Happens\u00a0host Nil K\u04e7ksal about why he believes it’s his duty to defy Trump’s order.<\/p>\n Two National Guard members recently told As It Happens<\/a> they are refusing orders to deploy to Chicago.<\/p>\n Zasloff doesn’t think America is a police state \u201cyet,\u201d though he believes the Trump administration is trying to turn it into one.<\/p>\n WATCH | ‘Is it too late?’ Trump losing support among some groups, UCLA professor says: Trump losing support among young Latino, Asian men, says UCLA law professor<\/p>\n Trump has broken much of the trust needed to govern effectively, especially among younger Latino and Asian men, says Jonathan Zasloff, a law professor at the University of California in Los Angeles. \u2018The tide is turning,\u2019 he told CBC News, while also asking, \u2018Is it too late? Is it going to matter?\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cBut that\u2019s always the case with any competitive authoritarian system,\u201d said Zasloff, pointing to Trump\u2019s declining approval ratings<\/a> and the growing movement<\/a> to stop his administration.<\/p>\n \u201cFor every action, there’s an equal and opposite reaction.\u201d<\/p>\n IN PHOTOS | Millions rally in ‘No Kings’ protests:<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the raids and deportations continue.<\/p>\n On Thursday afternoon, ICE boasted on X<\/a> about having deported \u201cover 5,300 criminal aliens throughout the Los Angeles area.\u201d<\/p>\n That same hour, DHS posted a Halloween-themed montage<\/a> of agents clashing with demonstrators and arresting immigrants, with the caption: \u201cThere will be no sanctuary for creatures & criminals of the night.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/1762006398_721_default.jpg\")
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George Retes, a 25-year-old U.S. army veteran, was arrested by ICE agents on his way to work as a security guard at Glass House Farms in Ventura County, Calif., on July 10. While dismayed that this could happen even to U.S. citizens like him, he says ‘it doesn’t change what the flag stands for or what it means to be an American.’ (Institute for Justice)ICE operating with ‘impunity’<\/p>\n![\"Four](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/1762006400_71_default.jpg\")
California Highway Patrol officers detain protesters on June 10 in Los Angeles. ICU nurse and migrant activist Amanda Trebach says it’s part of an effort to ‘make us fearful so they can take over more power.’ (Eric Thayer\/The Associated Press)<\/p>\n![\"Dozens](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/1762006401_842_default.jpg\")
People pray in Los Angeles as they gather to protest immigration raids and the presence of ICE in their communities on July 1. (Jae C. Hong\/The Associated Press)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/1762006402_195_default.jpg\")
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